Holiday Gift Guide 2006

A cheat sheet for choosing the perfect phone to give. Find exactly what they're hoping for.

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For those of you who are thinking about giving someone special a cell phone for the holidays, but have held off because you wanted to be sure you buy the right phone, we're here to help you make the right decision. We've done all the work for you, narrowing down the best choices for every person on your gift list on every national carrier. Because you have many people on your gift list, we've limited our selections to phones that sell for $250, most cost much less — especially with a contract. The only exception is cases where we have had to recommend unlocked phones. These will cost more than $250 but we have done our best to keep these affordable.

We believe the first step in choosing the right phone for someone is to choose the right carrier. The freedom to choose a carrier near you with the best coverage, calling plans or just the one he's been on forever ensures the gift recipient the best experience once he or she has the right phone to use on that network. To choose what phone to buy your loved ones as a gift, you need to consider how they're going to use it. Some people are still a bit scared of mobile phones and may only want them "for emergencies." At the other end of the spectrum are people who will try to do everything on their phone; and of course most folks actually fall somewhere in between. Find the type of person you're buying for, and in most cases you'll find a phone for him on whichever network you deem the best choice.

After you've picked out the pefect phone, there's still one more thing to do. When you or the lucky person you're giving a phone to has moved everything off of the old phone, don't just toss it in your junk drawer or a closet corner, recycle it. If you want to know anything about phone recycling, from reasons to do it to where to take your phone, check out our Cell Phone Recycling Guide.

when i reviewed the fusic, i honestly felt it was the fastest 12 key keypad for texting i had ever used. that's why we chose it (well that and sprint doesn't offer a single regular phone with a qwerty keyboard). there are other speech to text phones b...(continues)

well its not that bad if ur a fatass then maybe but the fusic's buttons are not rised (like embossed on a business card)but speech to text sounds good but maybe useless at work or school or wehn u just cant takl anywyas

Have any of you seen this service? http://www.voce.comIt seems really cool, unlimited calls, unlimited texts... Some decent phones... I usually spend almost $200 bucks on my plan anyway. Plus they have an assistant that will help you out with anything.

The BlackJack for Sprint is a good phone, but the internet package is 44.99/mo b/c the phone is classified as a PDA unlike the other Microsoft Mobile Smartphones you can get w/ Cingular for just $19.99/mo for internet. My suggestion would be the E62 44.99-19.99=$25.00 difference $25 x 24 month contract = $600 in savings A MUCH MUCH WISER decision.

hello sprinters out there. i'm thinking of changing our choice of camera phone (and possibly music phone) to the sanyo M1. we were unable to get confirmation of a launch date before we published, but it's come out early enough to change the guide. The m1 is sprint's only phone with an autofocus camera, and with 2 megapixels and a flash that meets all of our requirements. normally i trust sanyo cameras implicitly, but i just wanted to see if any of you have taken any pictures with it and if so, what are they like? has anyone posted some to flickr?

i also thought i'd see if any of you have used it to play some tunes. i wonder it sounds compared to the fusic (either through wired or wireless headphones.

1. In the Emailer tab, the Palm 700wx is a great PDA and is what i might get when I switch to Sprint. BUT the 700w is a horrible phone. crashes all the time.

2. In the Light Users section you mention "all these phones have great signal strength" Well the Samsung a870 for Verizon has been reported as having bad sound quality and reception. I'd put the V325i or LG 8300 in there.

3. In the Serious Talkers tab, the KRZR is mentioned. Dont get me worng, I think its a good phone. But people can get an even better phone @ a much cheaper price. Again, i'd put a LG 8300 in there or a RAZR V3m.

Overall great article. Just thought these changes would make it even more effective.

One question, I'm buying a T-Mobile To Go phone for someon...(continues)

we didn't choose the i730 because of its poor keyboard and questionable battery life. the 6700 is a contender but judging from what people carry now, they seem to choose the solid brick form factor over the slider. i have nothing against the 6700 othe...(continues)